Does the Holocaust Rule Apply
 

I don't think that was my position. I think we need to create a process and try them under it, and I think the G has been slow in that regard, partly because there are a bunch of competing concerns and partly because it benefits us to drag our feet, but they need to get moving. The part I am quibbling with is that the G is not going through torturous analytical exercises to treat these people outside of the Geneva Convention for some nefarious purpose. That is simply DEM spin.

Bottome Line on CAFTA
 

When it comes to free trade you just can't trust the Democrats. Like I suspected the oppostition to CAFTA is just Sugar interests lobbying and Democrat partisan point scoring.

Trade

The CAFTA conundrum

Jun 16th 2005
From The Economist print edition


A trade deal that must be passed but should not be repeated

FOR all their protectionist rhetoric, America's lawmakers have not rejected any trade deal negotiated by an American president for almost 40 years. Lyndon Johnson was the last president to suffer this rebuff when Congress threw out several provisions of the Kennedy round of global tariff cuts in 1967. Unfortunately, George Bush is now perilously close to suffering a similar embarrassment.

At issue is the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), a deal between the United States and five countries in Central America plus the Dominican Republic. Although the agreement was signed more than a year ago, Congress has yet to ratify it. This week CAFTA cleared its first hurdles in two congressional committees. The White House is hoping for full passage by the end of this month. But despite enormous pressure—Mr Bush has declared the deal to be his top trade priority—CAFTA's fate is still uncertain, and it may yet be defeated by a combination of powerful sugar growers, protectionist trade unions and partisan rancour.

In economic terms it is hard to see what all the fuss is about. Although CAFTA is important for Central Americans, whose main hope is for increased American investment, it will have only a small effect on America's economy. The combined output of the CAFTA countries is around $85 billion, about the size of the economy of Nevada. America already allows into its market almost 80% of these countries' exports tariff-free. And CAFTA's additional opening of America's most protected industries, such as sugar, is tiny.

In truth, CAFTA's significance is not its substance but what it symbolises for both supporters and opponents. The sugar lobby regards any increase in access for Central American sugar as a first step towards dismantling the defences that sustain this molly-coddled industry. Hence the huge pressure on congressmen from sugar areas, many of whom are usually free-trade Republicans, to vote against the agreement.

Democrats have their own special interests to contend with. For the unions, CAFTA has become a scapegoat for general fears about globalisation and the future of American jobs. For the party's leaders in Congress, the calculus is even more partisan. Intoxicated with their success, thus far, at stymieing Mr Bush's agenda on social security reform, the Democrats are determined to deal their nemesis a big blow on CAFTA.

Precisely because it has become a surrogate for so many other battles, the CAFTA outcome matters for the rest of the world. In the short term, the outlook for the Doha round of global trade talks, where a big breakthrough is needed by the end of this year, will be coloured by CAFTA's fate. If Congress rejects a small trade deal in its own back garden, what confidence can other countries have that American lawmakers will agree to a far more ambitious global deal? Rob Portman, Mr Bush's new trade negotiator, who hails from Congress, would be in a much weaker position (see article). Equally, the nature of any CAFTA compromise has global consequences. If Mr Bush gets CAFTA through Congress only by surrendering to the sugar lobby, the signals for Doha—and the prospect for progress in opening up sensitive farm sectors—will be grim. More broadly, freer global trade has long hinged on American leadership, and that leadership has depended on the commitment of a bipartisan group of free traders in Congress. If Democrats choose to stick with protectionism and partisan point-scoring, America's ability to lead will evaporate.

The jackpot
To avoid these outcomes, CAFTA needs to pass. Mr Bush must defeat the sugar lobby. The pro-trade Democrats must stand up to their short-sighted leaders. But once CAFTA has passed, Mr Bush must rethink his own trade strategy, especially its focus on pushing bilateral and regional deals in tandem with the Doha round. In economic terms, the focus on bilateralism was always dubious. A web of bilateral and regional deals is unequivocally inferior to freer global trade. The CAFTA fight has cast doubt on the strategy's political logic as well. Why spend so much capital on a deal of such small economic consequences? From now on, Mr Bush should focus on the really big prize—winning a successful global trade deal

Support for CAFTA
 

Washington Post
NY Times
Los Angeles Times
Boston Globe
Chicago Tribune

Support for CAFTA
 

I wonder if their comrades at Pravda, the Daily Worker and Le Monde feel betrayed.

Heard Over The Weekend
 

By Todd Snider


Conservative christian, right wing republican, straight white, american male.

Gay bashing, black fearing, poor fighting, tree killing, regional leaders of sales.

Frat housing and keg tapping and shirt tucking back slapping, haters of hippies like me.

Tree hugging, peace loving, pot smoking, porn watching,lazy ass hippies like me.

Tree hugging, love making, pro choicing, gay wedding, wide spread digging hippies like me.

skin color blinded, conspiracy minded, protesters of corporate greed

We who have nothing and most likely will, till we all end up locked up in jails

by Conservative christian, right wing republican, straight white american males.


Diamonds and dogs, boys and girls living together in 2 sperate worlds.

following leaders up mountians of shame, looking for someone to blame.


Diamonds and dogs, boys and girls. living together in 2 seperate worlds

following leaders up mountians of shame, looking for someone to blame.

I know who I like to blame.

Conservative christian, right wing republican, straight white. american males

soul saving, flag waving, Rush loving, land paving, personal friends to the Quayles

quite diligently, working so hard to keep the free reigns of this democracy

from tree hugging, peace loving, pot smoking, bare footing, folk singing hippies like me.

tree hugging, peace loving, pot smoking, porn watching, lazy ass hippies like me.

mp3 sample

Heard Over The Weekend
 

Nothing worse than an ingracious loser.

Heard Over The Weekend
 

Conservative republicans watch porn too, no?

And not after James Dobson is through with your party.
 

Only the self-hating ones.

And not after James Dobson is through with your party.
 

Sure, but the concurrent drug use helped obscure the recognition and dampen the pain.

Biden skates onto the ice.
 

Sure, it's early, but WaPo tells us today that Senator Joe Biden is testing the waters for a Presidential bid in '08.

I've always wondered what the length of the political sentence of exile was for plagiarism in campaign speeches, which IMHO pales in comparison to, say, Oval Office receipt of fellatio. Looks like now he's more comfortable getting out of the penalty box and crackin' some heads, which to my mind is a good thing.

Gattigap

Biden skates onto the ice.
 

If memory serves me, he also plagiarized a law school paper. He should have been disbarred, although I look forward to a national revisiting of his loose ethics if he should run. However, in fairness, plagiarizing a law school paper pales in comparison to fraudulent commodities trading (another topic I look forward to a national revisiting of-can you imagine www.shiftytradevets.com).

Democrats lose California wins
 

Democrats lose: Californians win.

The Sound Of Fear

The sounds you hear, that wailing and gnashing of teeth, are the Democrats screaming about the special election the Governor just called for November. They are afraid. They are very afraid of the consequences of the election, and they should be.

Take a look at their original budget proposal. The current year budget (the 2004-05 budget, the one we’re in right now) is about $80 billion general fund spending. The Governor’s May revise budget for next year (2005-06), for all the talk of restraint proposed an $88 billion general fund spending plan, which includes a $3 billion increase in school funding. The Democrats proposal was a $90 billion spending plan, a thirteen percent increase in spending over last year, the second largest increase in California history. They are truly spending addicts—they can’t wait to get their fix from your pocketbook.

The Governor’s plan would actually reduce the “out year” budget problems (06-07 budget and beyond) to about $4 billion, an astounding improvement over the deficits created by Gray Davis. The Democrats, with their $9 billion increase are going back to the Davis deficit plan. The largest increase in California history was 2000-01, a $12 billion increase, which created the Davis deficits. The current Democrat leadership wants to repeat this pattern of deficits with their budget, topped off with a tax increase to indulge their addiction.

The Governor’s response to these spendthrift ways is an initiative he calls the “Live within Your Means” budget reform. “Live within Your Means” is a modest budget cap, essentially limiting state spending increases to the average spending percentage increase of the previous three years. That limit, however, would prevent Democrats from engaging in deficit spending plans, hence, they oppose it.

The other initiatives on the ballot are inspiring similar fears in the Democrats and their public union supporters. The teacher tenure initiative simply says a teacher has to do at least a half-way decent job for five years (instead of the current two years) in order to get their guaranteed lifetime job. The union bosses think their members are entitled to this benefit after two years.

The Governor’s third proposal would take the job of drawing legislative districts away from the legislators who benefit from the district lines. The lines of 2001 guaranteed the Democrats another ten years of control in the Legislature, and they are afraid of losing that.

More than anything else, though, their true fear is that “paycheck protection” passes.

That is the initiative that tells the government employee union bosses that they cannot force their members to pay them money. Currently, everybody who works for any government entity in the state is forced, by law, to pay some government union at least $35 a month in “dues,” which is really just political tribute. Given the 330,000 people who work for state government, and the more than 1,000,000 people who work for local governments throughout the state, the amount of money that is paid to support the political agenda of the union bosses is huge. Those union bosses put over $20 million into electing Democrats in 2004. In exchange for this generous contribution to maintaining the power of the left-wing in California, these unions got increased power and lucrative employment contracts from the Democrats.

The California Teachers Union has already assessed its membership additional dues sufficiently to raise $50 million to fight these initiatives. The California Correctional Peace Officers Association (prison guards) has proposed an assessment large enough to raise $30 million, and other public employee unions are in the process of following suit.

If the paycheck protection initiative passes, this extortion scheme is over, and the end of the Democrats reign of indulgence may be near. That is their greatest fear, and that is why they are screaming so loud. Rather than force people to pay tribute to their political agenda, they may actually have to work to convince people to vote for them. They might actually have to listen to voters, or risk losing power. What a novel concept.

Democrats lose California wins
 

They won't learn anything, they will just look for another way to corrupt the system. I don't know that much about California but the teacher's union in Washington should have every last one of its leaders and members indicted (and imprisoned) for the damage that they have done to public education. Gitmo would be too good for these people.

Democrats lose California wins
 

I would much rather have seen an article with the following title:

"REPUBLICANS LOSE; AMERICANS WIN "

Given the current state of the federal budget/deficits, it takes a lot of nerve for the GOP to criticize DEMs for fiscal irresponsibility.

bin Laden
 

Is Porter Goss off his rocker, or are we not getting told everything? Saying "I have an excellent idea where bin Laden is" but sovereignty concerns prevent his capture has to be one of the more boneheaded quips of late, unless I'm missing something. If we know where he is, and it's a country with whom we have bad relations, can't we make a covert capture? What's going to happen? They complain to the world that we violated sovereignty to catch him? Or is it another one of those "we know he's in southeast afghanistan" kind of comments, which is entirely stupid because we know generally where he is (I hope), so that tells us nothing.